Date: October 27, 2017

Time: 3:00 – 4:30 p.m.

Venue: Room 106B, Zhonghui Building 

Speaker: Ye Mao-liang, Xiamen University

Sponsor: JNU Economic and Social Research Institute

ABOUT YE MAO-LIANG 

Ye Mao-liang is a assistant professor in the Department of Public Finance and the Wang Yannan Institute for Studies in Economics at Xiamen University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University in 2012 and once taught at Renmin University of China. He is generally interested in public economics, experimental and the microcosmic problems of behavioral economics, labor economics, development economics, and political economics. He devotes into the studies of prosocial behavior (such as the voluntary supply for public goods, cooperation and collaboration), team motivation, social preferences, subjective well-being, mental health, living quality, distribution, redistribution and the related psychology and attitude. He has published numerous papers in international journals like Journal of Comparative Economics, European Journal of Political Economy, Social Indicators Research, and served as peer reviewer for Journal of Public Economics，Social Choice and Welfare，China Economic Review，Journal of Happiness Studies and Applied economics. 

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the effect of income on happiness. It is the first such study to draw on twins data and one of the few studies on the causal effect of income on happiness in China. We control for genetic factors and family background using unique Chinese twins data in a within-twin-pair fixed-effects model, and use the instrumental variable fixed-effects method to correct measurement error bias. We find that income has a large positive effect on happiness, which survives a series of robustness checks. Our findings suggest the importance of income support in maintaining the happiness of the poor.